The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, has told the Vatican of the indignation and rejection of Ukrainians around the world to the proposal that this year’s Way of the Cross, which takes place annually in Rome on Good Friday, would be carried jointly by a Ukrainian woman and Russian woman.
‘I consider such an idea untimely, ambiguous, and such that it does not take into account the context of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. For the Greek Catholics of Ukraine, the texts and gestures of the Thirteenth Station of this Way of the Cross are incoherent and even offensive, especially in the context of the expected second, even bloodier attack of Russian troops on our cities and villages. I know that our Roman Catholic brothers share these thoughts and concerns,’ said His Beatitude Sviastoslav.
The Co Chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO), Mr Stefan Romaniw OAM, has joined these calls saying ‘In Australia, I have received many negative and bewildered responses to this plan. Ukrainians are carrying the cross as victims – they are suffering under the burden of a brutal, unwarranted invasion. The plan doesn’t take into account the unprecedented scale of their experience as a people who have been terrorised, denied their homes, their livelihoods, their self-identity, their dignity, their humanity’.
His Beatitude Sviatsolav explains ‘that gestures of reconciliation between Ukrainian and Russian peoples will be possible only when the war is over and those guilty of crimes against humanity are justly condemned’.
His comments are echoed by Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, who has said ‘Of course, we know that reconciliation occurs when the aggressor admits his guilt and asks for forgiveness.’
Catholic commentators, such as Mr Myroslav Marynovych, Vice Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University for University Mission, have said ‘The cross of Abel (innocent victim) and the cross of Cain (repentance of the offender) are different crosses. They cannot be combined – the first cross Ukrainians bear now; Russians still have to take the second cross on their shoulders.’
Mr Andrii Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, tweeted that his embassy ‘understands and shares the general concern of Ukrainian and many other communities about the idea of bringing Ukrainian and Russian women to carry the Cross during Friday’s Way of the Cross.
‘We are currently working on the issue, trying to explain the inability of its implementation and expected consequences,’ he tweeted.
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